Armathwaite's face, as he strode through Elmdale, was hardly that of a man who had found there the quiet and solitude he had stipulated for when in treaty with Walker & Son. Its stern and harassed aspect was seen and commented on by a score of people. Though most of the inhabitants were busy in the fields, there were watchers in plenty peering from each farm and cottage. Already the village held in common the scanty stock of information possessed by the Jacksons concerning the Grange's new tenant, because mother and daughter were far too shrewd to provoke discussion by withholding the facts stated by the house agent. They knew that every urchin who could toddle had peeped through gate and hedges that morning; they were more alive than Armathwaite himself to the risk Miss Meg ran of being seen if she went outside the house, front or back, for ten seconds. The best way to disarm gossip was to answer as best they might the four questions put by every inquirer: Who is he? Where does he come from? Is he married? How long will he stop?
Singularly enough, in a land of variable weather, Elmdale at this time was bathed in brilliant sunshine from morn till eve. The ripening crops, the green uplands, the moor, with its gorse just fading and its heather showing the first faint flush of purple, were steeped in the "great peacefulness of light" so dear to Ruskin. If one searched the earth it would be hard to find a nook where sorrow and evil were less likely to dree their weird; yet, Armathwaite expected to meet those grim sisters stalking through the ancient house when he saw an empty dog-cart and an open door; he seldom erred in such forecasts, and his divination was not at fault now.
As he entered the hall, he heard the girl's voice, clear and crisp and scornful.
"How dare you say such things to me! How dare you! My father is alive and well. If he were here now——"
James Walker chuckled.
"Tell that to the Marines," he began. The remainder of the sentence died on his lips when Armathwaite's tall form appeared in the doorway.
"You here, Mr. Walker?" said the Anglo-Indian calmly. Then, noting Marguérite Ogilvey's white face and distraught eyes, he assumed a mystified air, and cried:
"Hullo, Meg, what's gone wrong?"
She flew to him instantly, clasping his arm, and the confident touch of her fingers thrilled him to the core.
"Oh, Bob, I'm so glad you've come back," she almost sobbed. "That—that nasty little man has been telling such horrid fibs. He says—he says—Oh, Bob, won't you send him away?"
At that moment the mental equilibrium of James Walker, junior (his father was also James) was badly shaken. It oscillated violently in one direction when he noted the manner of address these two adopted the one to the other. It swung to another extreme on hearing himself described as "a nasty little man" by a girl for whom a long-dormant calf love had quickened in his veins when Tom Bland announced that "Meg Garth, or her ghost," was at the Grange that day. It positively wobbled when Armathwaite threw a protecting arm round the desired one's shoulders. So he listened, open-mouthed, when Armathwaite spoke.
"Sorry I wasn't at home, Meg, dear, when Mr. Walker arrived—or he wouldn't have troubled you," the mysterious stranger was saying. There was an unpleasant glint in the steely glance that accompanied the next words:
"Now, Mr. Walker, come outside, and explain your business."
But Walker was no country bumpkin, to be overawed and silenced by a man of superior social status. He was puzzled, and stung, stung beyond hope of cure. Yet he was not afraid. Certain qualities of sharpness and cuteness warned him that if he controlled his temper, and did not bluster, he held the whip hand in a situation of which the true inwardness was still hidden.
"My business is not with you, Mr. Armathwaite," he said, with the utmost civility his tongue was capable of. "I heard of Miss Garth's arrival, and came to see her. It's not my fault if she's vexed at what I've said. I meant no offense. I only told the truth."
"I have reason to believe that you forced yourself into Miss Garth's presence;" and, in repeating the name, Armathwaite pressed the girl's shoulder gently as an intimation that no good purpose would be served by any correction in that respect. "Again, and for the last time, I request you to leave her."
"There's no last time about it," said Walker, who was watching Marguérite's wan and terror-stricken face. "I had a perfect right to call on Meg Garth. She daren't pretend she doesn't know me, and a false name can't humbug me, or Tom Bland, for that matter."
"I know you only too well," broke in the girl with a vehemence that brought a momentary rush of color to her cheeks. "You annoyed me for two years, and I'm sorry now I didn't complain to my father about your ridiculous oglings and shilling boxes of chocolates, which I gave to the village children."
She struck harder than she knew. Walker bridled like an annoyed turkey-cock. Armathwaite pressed Marguérite's shoulder a second time, and withdrew his hand.
"If your ungracious admirer won't leave you, Meg, you had better leave him," he said, smiling into her woebegone face. "Go into the drawing-room, or join Mrs. Jackson.I'lldeal with Mr. Walker."
He held the door open, purposely blotting Walker out of sight, and the girl obeyed. She went out bravely enough, but he caught a smothered sob as she passed towards the kitchen. There also, he was bitterly aware, danger lurked in other guise, though the two well-disposed women might perchance have the wit to discredit Walker's revelations, whatever they were.
Closing the door, which swung half open again without his knowledge, he turned an inquiring and most unfriendly eye on the unwanted visitor.
"I hope you are ashamed of yourself," he said quietly.
If Walker had understood mankind better, he would not have misinterpreted that suave utterance by imagining, as he did, that it betokened fear of exposure. Unhappily, he strutted, and slapped a gaitered leg with a switch he carried in place of a whip.
"Ashamed of nothing," he answered truculently. "I admit being sweet on the girl. What is there to be ashamed of in that, I'd like to know?"
"It's distinctly to your credit, in some ways," said Armathwaite. "I should have expected your tastes to run rather to barmaids, with an ultimate vote in favor of the daughter of a well-to-do butcher. I dislike class distinctions, Walker. Too often they savor of snobbery; but, in this instance, I am obliged to remind you that my cousin is a lady."
"Oh, is that it? Cousins, are you? I wish you'd told me sooner."
"Why?"
"It might have saved this bit of bother, anyhow."
"I don't think that any well-meant explanations on my part could cure you of an impertinent nature, Walker."
"Dash it all, Mr. Armathwaite, why couldn't I visit Meg? I've seen and spoken to her scores of times."
"But, even in Nuttonby, one does not thrust one's presence on a lady uninvited."
Walker laughed. He could stand any amount of reproof as to his manners, because he rather prided himself on a swaggering disregard of other people's feelings.
"We don't stand on ceremony in Yorkshire," he said jauntily. "I opened the door, and actually heard her voice. There was no sense in Betty Jackson sayin' Miss Garth wasn't here, and I told her so pretty plainly. Then, out she came. What would you have done, in my shoes? Now, I ask you, sir, as man to man."
"I would have striven not to insult her so grossly that she should be moved to tears."
"But I didn't. Don't you believe it. I was pleasant as could be. She behaved like a regular little spit-fire. Turned on me as though she'd been waitin' for the chance. I can stand a lot, but I'm jiggered if I'd let her tell me she'd complain to her father, and have him take away the agency of the property from our firm, when her father is buried these two years in Bellerby churchyard. Why, she must think I'm dotty."
Armathwaite moistened his lips with his tongue.
"You enlightened her ignorance, I presume?" he inquired blandly.
"I didn't know what she was gettin' at, but I asked her plump and plain who the 'Stephen Garth' was who hanged himself in this very house, and has his name and the date of his death on the stone over his grave.... It strikes me that even you don't know the facts, Mr. Armathwaite. If her father is alive, who was the man who committed suicide?... And, by jing,didhe commit suicide?"
James Walker's theorizing ended suddenly.
"You poisonous little rat!" murmured Armathwaite, and seized him. Walker was young and active, and by no means a weakling or cowardly, but he resembled a jackal in the grip of a tiger when the hands closed on him which had choked the life out of Nas'r-ulla Khan, chief cut-throat of the Usman Khel. There was no struggle. He was flung face downwards on the table until the door was thrown wide. Then he was bundled neck and crop out of the house, and kicked along the twenty yards of curving path to the gate.
There Armathwaite released him, a limp and profane object.
"Now, go to Nuttonby, and stop there!" was the parting injunction he received. His bitterest humiliation lay in the knowledge that Marguérite Garth and Betty Jackson, hearing the racket, had rushed to hall and door, and were gloating over his discomfiture. A drop of bitterest gall was added by his assailant's subsequent behavior, for Armathwaite turned his back on him, and sauntered slowly to the house, seemingly quite assured that there would be no counter-attack. And, indeed, James Walker retained sufficient sense in his frenzied brain to realize that he had no earthly chance in a physical struggle with this demon of a man. So he climbed into the dog-cart, though not with his wonted agility, and drove away to Nuttonby without ever a backward glance.
But he vowed vengeance, vowed it with all the intensity of a mean and stubborn nature. He had visions, at first, of a successful action for assault and battery; but, as his rage moderated, he saw certain difficulties in the way. His only witnesses would be hostile, and it was even questionable if a bench of magistrates would convict Armathwaite when it was shown that he, Walker, had virtually forced an entry into the house, and refused to leave when requested.
But he could strike more subtly and vindictively through the authorities. Marguérite Garth had said that Stephen Garth was living, and Robert Armathwaite—that compound of iron knuckles and whip-cord muscles—had tacitly endorsed the statement. If that was true, who was the man buried in Stephen Garth's name and identity in the churchyard at Bellerby? He had a vague recollection of some difference of opinion between the coroner and a doctor at the inquest. He must refresh his memory by consulting a file of theNuttonby Gazette. In any event, he could stir a hornets' nest into furious activity and search the innermost recesses of the Grange with anguish-laden darts. Curse Meg Garth and her cousin! He'd teach both of 'em, that he would! If they thought that James Walker was done with because he had been flouted and ill-used, they were jolly well mistaken, see if they weren't!
Marguérite Ogilvey was as tender-hearted a girl as ever breathed, but it needed super-human qualities—qualities that no woman could possibly possess and have red blood in her veins—to restrain the fierce joy which thrilled her being when she saw her persecutor driven forth with contumely. Betty Jackson, the village maid, was delighted but shocked; Marguérite, the educated and well-bred young lady, rejoiced candidly.
"You've done just what I would have done if I were a strong man like you!" she cried tremulously, when Armathwaite faced her at the door. There was a light in her eyes which he gave no heed to at the moment—the light which comes into the eyes of woman when she is defended by her chosen mate—but he attributed it to excitement, and hastened to calm her.
"I may have acted rashly," he said; "but I couldn't help it. Sometimes, one has to take the law into one's own hands. Surely, this is one of the occasions."
"He'll keep clear of Elmdale for a bit," chortled Betty. "P'raps he thinks no one saw you kickin' him except ourselves. He's wrong! Half the village knows it! Old Mrs. Bolland nearly fell out of an upstairs window with cranin' her neck to see what was goin' on, an' there's little Johnnie Headlam runnin' down the ten-acre field now to tell Mr. Burt an' his men all about it."
The girl had thoughtlessly blurted out a fact of far-reaching import. Armathwaite swung on his heel, and found gaping faces at every cottage backwindow, and above every hedge. Sleepy Elmdale had waked. Its usually deserted street was pullulating with child life. The sharp Walkers were somewhat too sharp on the land agency side of their business, and were cordially hated in consequence. The bouncing of Walker, junior, had not made him popular; his trouncing would provide a joyous epic for many a day. As for Marguérite Ogilvey's presence in the house, it was known far and wide already. She had been recognized by dozens of people. Elmdale, which might have figured as Goldsmith's deserted village five minutes earlier, was now a thriving place, all eyes and cackling tongues.
Armathwaite had lost sight of that highly probable outcome of his action, nor did it trouble him greatly. The major happening, which he had striven so valiantly to avert, had come about through no fault of his; these minor issues were trivial and might be disregarded. In an earthquake the crumbling of a few bricks more or less is a matter of small account. He knew that when Marguérite Ogilvey had almost forgotten the downfall of Walker she would remember its immediate cause the more poignantly.
"Hadn't we better go indoors till the weather is cooler?" he said, and the sound of his calm voice, no less than the smile he managed to summon in aid, relaxed the tension.
"Please, miss, shall I make a fresh pot of tea?" inquired Betty when the door was closed. There spoke the true Yorkshire breed. Let the heavens fall, but don't miss a meal.
"No," said Marguérite, holding her open hands pressed close to eyes and cheeks.
"Yes," said Armathwaite—"that is, if Miss Meg has not had her tea."
Betty nodded, and hastened into the drawing-room, where, it appeared, tea was awaiting Armathwaite's return when Walker arrived on the scene. She emerged, carrying a tea-pot, and went to the kitchen. Marguérite was now crying silently. When the man caught her arm, meaning to lead her gently into the drawing-room, she broke into a very tempest of weeping, just as a child yields to an abandonment of grief when most assured of sympathy and protection.
He took her to a chair, but did not attempt to pacify her. For one thing, he had a man's belief that a woman's hyper-sensitive nervous system may find benefit in what is known as "a good cry;" for another, he was not sorry to have a brief respite during which to collect and criticize his own ideas. He did not even try to conceal from himself the ugly fact that James Walker had put into one or two sentences of concentrated venom all that was known to him (Armathwaite) concerning the death in the house, and even a little more, because he had not learnt previously that Stephen Garth was buried at Bellerby. Nor did he permit himself to under-rate Marguérite's intelligence. Her heedless vivacity, and the occasional use of school-girl slang in her speech, were the mere externals of a thoughtful and well-stored mind. There was not the least chance that she would miss any phase of the tragedy which had puzzled and almost bewildered him by its vagueness and mystery. She would recall his own perplexed questions of the previous night. In all likelihood the Jacksons, mother and daughter, had said things which fuller knowledge would clothe with sinister significance. Walker's open-mouthed brutality had left nothing to the imagination. When Marguérite Ogilvey spoke, Armathwaite felt that he would be called on to deal with the most difficult problem he had ever tackled.
When Betty came with a replenished tea-pot she would have attempted to soothe the girl's convulsive sobbing had not Armathwaite intervened.
"Leave Miss Meg to me," he said. "She's going to stop crying in a minute, and vow that she looks a perfect fright, and must really go to her room and bathe her eyes. And I'm going to tell her that a handkerchief dipped in a teaspoonful of milk and dabbed on red eyes is more refreshing and healing than a bucketful of cold water. Then we'll have tea, and eke a stroll on the moor, and perchance Providence will send us a quiet hour in which to look at facts squarely in the face, whereupon some of us will know just where we are, and the world will not be quite so topsy-turvy as it appears at this moment."
Betty gathered that the "master's" harangue was not meant for her, and withdrew, whereupon Marguérite dropped her hands and lifted her swimming eyes to Armathwaite's grave and kindly face.
"Is that milk recipe of yours really intended for use?" she inquired, with a piteous attempt at a smile.
"The whole program has been carefully planned on the most up-to-date and utilitarian lines," he answered.
"Did you hurt Walker?" was her next rather unexpected question, while pouring some milk into a saucer.
"Yes."
"I'm glad."
"How many boxes of chocolates did he send you?"
"About half a dozen."
"Then I kicked him at least once for each box—gave good measure, too."
"It's horrid and un-Christian—still, I'm glad. Do you take sugar and cream?"
"Of course."
"Why of course? Some people don't."
"I'm an emphatic person in my likes and dislikes, so I talk that way."
"I don't know what I should have done if you were not here."
"You are too charitable. It is my being here that has caused all the worry."
"No, I cannot take that view. There are happenings in life which, at the hour, seem to be the outcome of mere chance, but one realizes later that they were inevitable as autumn after spring."
"What a libel on our English climate," he laughed. "Is there no summer, then? What about this present glorious revel of sunshine? Charles the Second, who never said a foolish thing and never did a wise one, remarked one day that, in his opinion, England possessed the best climate in the world, because no day was too hot or too cold to prevent a man from going out of doors. I've seen more of the world, geographically speaking, than his kingship, yet I agree with him."
"My father——" she began, but choked suddenly.
"Tell me this, Meg: how long is it since you last saw your father?" he demanded, well knowing the futility of any attempt to divert her mind from a topic which must surely occupy it to the exclusion of all else.
"Just a week ago," she faltered.
"Good! I need not insist, then, that our young friend in the red waistcoat is mistaken when he says that your father occupies a grave in Bellerby churchyard! Of course, I'm not pretending that you and I are not faced with a strange problem. With your permission, I propose that we solve it together. I'll keep nothing back. You, on your part, must answer such questions as I think necessary—unless, that is, you feel I am trespassing unduly into the private affairs of your family. I'm not well posted in the turns and twists of English country life, but I am quite certain of two things—first, the mystery attached to this house must be dissipated now, because the police authorities will insist on it; second, if they beat me, and you suffer, they'll have achieved something that no set of officials has succeeded in doing hitherto. Now, I want you to believe that, and to act in the assumption that God is in heaven, and all is well with the world."
The girl smiled through her tears, and strove gallantly to eat one of the cheese-cakes for which Mrs. Jackson was renowned.
"Bob," she said, after a little while, "will you tell me why you came to Elmdale?"
"I wanted peace and solitude, plus some trout-fishing."
"Yet you speak of engaging in some terrible combat against the law on my account."
"Aren't you rather jumping at conclusions? Circumstances have conspired to build a bogey. A ghost which all Elmdale has seen in the hall resolves itself, on inquiry, into a shadow cast by a stained-glass window. Certain murderous-sounding thumps which I heard last night materialize into a charming young lady. Why shouldn't a death which took place in this house two years since prove equally susceptible of a simple explanation? No, we're not going to convert ourselves into a committee of two until you have taken one more cup of tea, one more cake, or two slices of bread and butter. Then you'll put on a hat, and I'll light a pipe, and we'll climb up to the moor. On the way I'll impart every scrap of information I've gathered thus far, and, when you have considered the situation in such light as I am able to cast on it, you will decide whether or not you are justified in telling me something of your recent history. Is it a bargain?"
Armathwaite was only talking for the sake of keeping the girl's mind from brooding on the extraordinary facts thrust on her by Walker. He was sure she would treat a phenomenal set of affairs more rationally if she heard the story from his own lips. He would have liked, if possible, to have glanced over the report of the inquest in the newspaper promised by Betty, but decided that Marguérite Ogilvey must not be left to her own thoughts one instant longer than was absolutely necessary.
Examination of the newspaper was deferred, therefore. When the girl ran downstairs to join him she had tied some scrap of blue veil over her hat in such wise that her face was screened in profile, so, as they breasted the hill together, he could hardly judge of the effect of the curious story he had to relate. He omitted nothing, minimized no detail. From the moment of his entry into the office of Walker & Son, at Nuttonby, he gave a full and lucid narrative. Rather losing sight of his own altruism in his eagerness to show how essential it was that they should meet attack with the confidence engendered by being prepared for all possible developments, he was not aware of the wondering glances which Marguérite shot at him with increasing frequency.
At last, he made an end. They had walked a mile or more, he talking steadily and the girl listening, only interposing a word now and again to show that she followed what he was saying, when he saw a man seated by the roadside at a little distance. The road dipped sharply at this point. They had crossed the first of a series of undulations which formed the great plateau of the moor, and Elmdale and its pastures were completely hidden.
"Shall we turn back?" he said. "This fellow in front looks like a weary tourist, but I fancy you don't want to meet anyone just now, and I haven't noticed a branch path through the heather."
Marguérite was gazing curiously at the bent figure. Her eyes held the expression of one who sees something familiar while the other senses refuse to be convinced. Armathwaite, by reason of the veil, could not see that half-startled, wholly skeptical look, but her attitude was enough.
"Do you think you know that chap?" he said.
Perhaps, in that quiet moorland, his voice carried farther than he imagined. Be that as it may, the tired one raised his drooping head, and looked their way.
"Why, it is—it must be!" cried Marguérite excitedly, though no man could guess whether she was pleased or annoyed.
"There can be no doubt about it," agreed Armathwaite.
"But, don't you see, he's waving to us? It's Percy Whittaker! Has he dropped from the skies?"
"With a bump, I should guess," said Armathwaite.
But inwardly he raged. Were these complications never to cease? That dejected figure was eloquent of fate. Somehow, its worn and nerveless aspect was menacing.
Yet, he laughed, being one who flaunted fortune in that way.
"If it really is Percy, let's go and cheer him up," he said. "He looks as though he needed comforting."
That moment was a vital one in the lives of those two; it influenced the lives of others in lesser degree, but to Marguérite Ogilvey and Robert Armathwaite it meant so much that the man, in calm review of events subsequently, saw that it stood out from minor incidents in exactly the same dominant proportion as James Walker's hurried descent on Mrs. Jackson's cottage on the preceding day.
Had Walker remained in the dog-cart, and shouted for the keys of the Grange, Mrs. Jackson would have contrived, by hook or by crook, to delay the examination of the house until Betty had smuggled "Miss Meg" into safety, in which case Armathwaite would never have met her. And, now, if the girl had quickened her pace—in eager delight, perhaps, breaking into a run—had she, either by voice or manner, shown that the unforeseen presence of Percy Whittaker on the moor was not only an extraordinary event in itself, but one which she hailed with unmitigated joy, Armathwaite would assuredly have stifled certain vague whisperings of imagination which, ere long, might exercise a disastrous influence on the theory he held in common with a well-known British general—namely, that empire-builders should not be married. But she stood stock still, and, without turning her head so that Armathwaite might see her face, said quietly:
"Well, it is the unexpected that happens, and the last person I dreamed of seeing to-day was Master Percy."
"Are you sure itisWhittaker?" inquired Armathwaite.
He put the question merely for the sake of saying something banal and commonplace. Not for an instant did he doubt the accuracy of Marguérite's clear brown eyes; but, oddly enough, the behavior of the dejected figure by the roadside lent reasonable cause for the implied doubt. Never did tired wayfarer look more weary or disconsolate. After that first glance, and a listless gesture, the stranger showed no other sign of recognition. To all seeming, he had reached the limit of his resources, physical and mental.
"Sure?" echoed the girl. "Of course, I'm sure. There's only one Percy, and it's there now, beastly fagged after a long walk on a hot day in thin patent-leather shoes. Doesn't it remind you of a plucked weed drooping in the sunshine?"
She moved on, walking rapidly now, but a slight undertone of annoyance had crept into her voice, tinging her humor with sarcasm. Armathwaite said nothing. The sun-laved landscape glowed again after a few seconds of cold brilliance—a natural phenomenon all the more remarkable inasmuch as no cloud flecked the sky.
Thus, in silence, they neared the limp individuality huddled dejectedly on a strip of turf by the roadside. To Armathwaite's carefully suppressed amusement, he saw that the wanderer was indeed wearing thin, patent-leather shoes.
"Percy!" cried the girl.
Percy looked up again. He drew the fore-finger of his right hand around the back of his neck between collar and skin, as though his head required adjustment in this new position.
"Hallo, Meg!" he said, and the greeting was not only languid but bored.
"What in the world are you doing here?" she went on, halting in front of him.
"I dunno," he said. "I'm beastly fagged, I can tell you—"
Armathwaite smiled, but Marguérite laughed outright.
"There's nothing to grin at," came the querulous protest. "Once upon a time I labored under the impression that England was a civilized country, but now I find it's habitable only in parts, and this isn't one of the parts, not by a jolly long way. I say, Meg, you booked to Leyburn, didn't you?"
"Yes."
"But you never walked over this moor?"
"I did."
"Well, I wish I'd known as much about Yorkshire before I started as I do now—that's all."
Again he twisted his neck and freed it from the chafing contact of a tight collar. After a curious peep at Armathwaite, he bent a pair of gray-green eyes on the turf at his feet once more.
"Percy, don't be stupid, but tell me why you've come," cried Marguérite. "There's no bad news from home, is there?"
"No—that's all right. Edie sent me."
"Why?"
"You said you'd wire or write. When no telegram came yesterday, and no letter this morning, she bundled me off by the next train. 'Go and see what has become of her?' was the order, and here I am. Where am I, please?"
"Near Elmdale. I'm awfully sorry, Percy. I—I couldn't either telegraph or write yesterday. I've written to-day—"
"Near Elmdale!" he broke in. "Is it what the natives hereabouts call 'a canny bit' away?"
"No—only a little over a mile. Poor Percy!"
"Idiotic Percy! Percy, the silly ass! Percy, the blithering idiot! D'you see that suitcase?" and he swayed slightly, and directed a mournful glance at a small, leather portmanteau lying by his side. "I've sent that dashed thing, packed as it is now, by rail and parcels post scores of times, and they generally make it out as weighing about eleven pounds. That's a bally mistake. I must have swindled the railway companies and the Post Office out of a pot of money. It weighs a ton—one solid ton. And I've carried it dozens of miles. Me, mind you, who hates carrying things, clung to it as if my life depended on it. I started out from Leyburn station hours and hours ago. I asked a chap how far it was to Elmdale across the moor. He showed me the road, and said: 'It's a gay bit, maister.' I climbed a hill at least five miles high—higher than any mountain in Europe I can remember reading about—and met a man. 'Is this the way to Elmdale?' I inquired. 'Ay,' he said. 'How far?' said I. 'It's a nice bit, maister,' said he. Being, as I thought, on top of the hill, I imagined that all I had to do was to walk down the other side; so I left him and rambled on. After walking miles and miles I met another man. 'How far to Elmdale?' I said. 'It's a canny bit, maister,' was his contribution. That knocked me out. I left him without another word. I staggered more miles, till I got this far; but when I saw the next hill I gave in. Tell me the worst, Meg, before I lie down and die. How far is it to Elmdale, really?"
"Mr. Armathwaite will carry your suitcase, and I'll take your arm, and you'll be at the Grange in twenty minutes. It's all down hill after we leave this slight dip."
"Mr. Armathwaite?" inquired Percy dully, quite ignoring the other man's courteous smile at the implied introduction.
"Yes, the new tenant of our house."
"First I've heard of any new tenant."
"Nothing surprising in that," and Marguérite's voice grew almost snappy. "Get up, anyhow, unless you wish to have a mattress and a quilt brought here."
The young man rose. He was not affecting a weariness he did not feel. Being a weedy youth, not built for feats of athleticism, the long walk in a hot sun over difficult country had taxed his physique unduly.
"How d'ye do?" he said, raising lack-luster eyes to Armathwaite's.
"I'm fit as a fiddle," said Armathwaite cheerfully, grabbing the portmanteau. "So will you be to-morrow. In fact, you'll be surprised how quickly your muscles will lose their stiffness when you sight the journey's end."
"I've been doing that every five minutes during the past two hours," was the doleful answer.
Armathwaite nodded sympathetically. Percy Whittaker struck him as a flabby creature, whose conversational style was unintentionally funny. Like Falstaff, if not humorous in himself, he was "the cause of humor in others."
Truth to tell, Armathwaite gave him slight heed. He was mainly interested in Marguérite Ogilvey's attitude, and she was markedly irritated either by her friend's lackadaisical pose or because he had appeared at all. The girl softened, however, when she saw how Percy limped. She linked an arm in his, and the trio moved off.
"How often have I told you to wear strong boots with good, stout soles?" she said. "I'm a good walker myself, but I don't tackle these moor roads in house slippers. Isn't that so, Mr. Armathwaite? One ought to be properly shod for trudging about the country."
"You don't seem to understand that I hate trudging anywhere; the last thing I dreamed of when I left Chester this morning was that I should tramp half across Yorkshire," protested Whittaker.
"Even now, I don't see why you came."
"Couldn't help myself—Edie's orders."
"But why?"
"Well—er—"
"If you mean that she knew I had gone away intending to wear a boy's clothes you needn't spare my feelings. Mr. Armathwaite knows all about that."
"Does he? In that case, I'm spared any explanation. You see, Edie was naturally anxious. As for me, I hardly slept a wink last night through worrying about you. And then, a letter came for you this morning from your father. I recognized his handwriting, and it's marked 'Immediate.' Since there was no news from you, we were at a loss to decide on the best course to adopt. Now, I appeal to you, Mr. Armathwaite. Suppose—"
"I agree with you entirely," broke in Armathwaite. "I think Miss Ogilvey ought to be profoundly grateful for your self-sacrifice."
"There, Meg, do you hear that? Self-sacrifice! I'm literally skinned in your service, and you only pitch into me. Now, I've done most of the talking. It's your turn. When are you coming home?"
"To-morrow, perhaps."
"But, I say, Meg! There'll be a howling row with your people when they find out."
"Where is dad's letter? You've brought it, of course?"
"Yes. Edie thought that was the best plan. Here you are!"
He produced a letter from a breast pocket, and sat down instantly when the girl murmured an apology and opened the envelope. Armathwaite refilled his pipe, and lit it. While doing so he became aware that Percy Whittaker was scrutinizing him with a curiously subtle underlook, and the notion was borne in on him that the newcomer, though effete in some respects, might be alert enough in others. For one thing, the tired gray-green eyes had suddenly become critical; for another, a weak mouth was balanced by a somewhat stubborn chin. For all his amusingly plaintive air, this young man could be vindictive if he chose. At any rate, Armathwaite realized that another barrier had been thrust in the way of Marguérite Ogilvey's untroubled departure from Elmdale. Percy Whittaker was obviously an intimate friend, and the extraordinary crisis which had arisen in the Ogilvey household could hardly remain hidden from him. What use would he make of the knowledge? How would such a flabby youth act in circumstances which were utterly perplexing to a man ten years his senior in age and immeasurably more experienced? Armathwaite could not make up his mind. He must simply bide his time and act as he deemed expedient in conditions that varied so remarkably from hour to hour. At the moment, he was in the position of the master of a ship becalmed in the tropics, surrounded by an unvexed sea and a cloudless sky, yet warned by a sharp fall in the barometer that a typhoon was imminent.
His thoughts were interrupted by an exclamation from the girl.
"Just like dad!" she cried. "He writes asking me to search among the old bookshops of Chester for one of the very volumes I am bringing from his own library. He knows it is here, yet persists in disregarding the fact. Mr. Armathwaite, whatamI to think? Isn't it enough to turn one's hair gray?"
"It is a puzzling situation, certainly," said Armathwaite, quickly alive to the fact that, in Whittaker's presence, at any rate, the cousinship had been dropped.
"What is?" demanded Whittaker. "Not much to make a fuss about in searching for a book, is there?"
"No. But suppose I tell you that people here declare my father is dead, that he committed suicide two years ago, that he is buried in a neighboring cemetery, that his ghost is seen o' nights in our own house—what would you say then, Percy?"
"I'd say that the inhabitants are well suited to their country, and the sooner you and I are away from both, the better for the pair of us."
Meg crumpled up the letter in one hand, and hauled Whittaker to his feet with the other.
"Come on," she said emphatically. "If you hear the whole story now you'll collapse. I'm glad you've arrived, though I thought at first you were adding to my worries. You can help in clearing up a mystery. Now, don't interrupt, but listen! I'm going to give you a plain, straightforward version of events which sound like the maddest sort of nonsense. You wouldn't believe a word I'm telling you if Mr. Armathwaite wasn't present. But he will vouch for every syllable, and, when I've finished, you'll agree that when I said we would leave here, 'to-morrow, perhaps,' I might just as well have substituted 'next week' or 'next month' for 'to-morrow.' Isn't that so, Mr. Armathwaite?"
Armathwaite removed his pipe from between teeth that were biting savagely into its stem. He wished the girl had been more discreet, yet, how could he forbid these confidences?
"Yes, and no," he answered. "Yes, if you mean to constitute yourself into a court of inquiry; no, if you take my advice, and return to Chester with Mr. Whittaker without loss of time."
"How is that possible?" she insisted, turning wondering eyes on him. "You yourself said that nothing we can do now will stop the authorities from re-opening the whole affair. There is no hope of closing people's mouths, Bob! Well, I've said it, and now Percy will be wild to learn the facts, because Meg Ogilvey doesn't run around calling by their Christian names men whom she has known a day without very good reason. But you don't know our local folk if you think our affairs are not being talked of in Elmdale and Nuttonby at this moment. Bland saw me, and James Walker will spread the tale far and wide. What good will I do by running away? Don't imagine I didn't hear what Walker said. He blurted out what you have hinted at. Some man was found dead in our house. It wasn't my father. Then, who was it?"
In her excitement she was hurrying Percy along at a rare pace, and Armathwaite saw, with a chill of foreboding, that the other was stepping out without protest, all an ear for impending revelations.
"From that point of view, Mr. Whittaker's presence is unquestionably advantageous," he said. "He is a friend in whom you can trust. He is acquainted with your relatives, I take it. His opinions will consequently be far weightier than mine."
"That's the way Bob talks when he's grumpy," said the girl, apparently for Whittaker's benefit alone. "He doesn't mean it really, but he thinks he ought to behave like a stage uncle and prevent an impulsive young thing from acting foolishly. Yet, all the time, he knows quite well that we could no more change the course of events now than hold back the tide."
"Will you kindly remember that if you were talking Greek, I'd have just about as much grasp of what you're saying as I have at this moment?" put in Whittaker.
Thus recalled to her task, Marguérite did not deviate from it any further. By the time Percy Whittaker had dropped into a chair in the dining-room, he had heard exactly what had happened since Armathwaite arrived in Elmdale. As he was hungry, a meal was improvised. He said little, only interpolating a fairly shrewd question now and again while Marguérite was amplifying some part of her recital. About this time he developed a new trait. He seemed rather to shirk comments which would draw Armathwaite into the conversation. When the girl appealed to the latter to verify some statement of fact, Whittaker remained silent. Even when it was necessary to refer directly to Armathwaite, he did so obliquely.
"You've spun a jolly queer yarn, Meg," he said, after she had retailed, for the second time, and with evident gusto, the discomfiture of James Walker. "I think it would be a good notion now if we found out what really did occur in this house after you and your mother went away. Didn't you say there was a newspaper report of the inquest handy?"
"Betty Jackson promised to give it to Mr. Armathwaite."
"Well, couldn't we see it?"
"I'll go and ask her for it," said Armathwaite, and he left the room.
"Tell you what, Meg," drawled Percy, pouring out a third cup of tea, "you're making a howling mistake in letting that chap share your confidence."
Marguérite's eyebrows curved in astonishment. The very suddenness of this attack was disconcerting.
"What do you mean?" she cried.
"It's not always easy to give reasons for one's ideas. I was just thinking that he's a complete stranger, and here he is acting as though he was the head of the family. Who is he? Where does he come from? Why is he poking his nose into your private affairs? By gad, I can see Edie sniffing at him if she was here in my place!"
Some gleam of intuition warned the girl that she must repress the sharp retort on her lips.
"Then I am glad your sister is not here," she said quietly. "You must have woefully misunderstood every word I have uttered if you imagine that Mr. Armathwaite has done anything but strive manfully to keep a sordid story from my ken. He tried to make me go away this morning, and again this afternoon. He would certainly send me off early to-morrow if he were not afraid of some terrible thing happening. Please don't begin by being prejudiced against Mr. Armathwaite. I have enough trouble staring me in the face to dispense with absurd suspicions of one who has been a very real friend."
Whittaker seemed to weigh the point. Marguérite's self-control probably angered him as greatly as any other of the amazing things which had come to his knowledge during the past hour. He had expected her to bridle in defense of the man in whom she reposed such trust; her very calmness was unexpected and annoying.
"What will your people say when the whole business comes out?" he grumbled. "Dash it, Meg, I must speak plainly! It's no joke, you know, your coming here and being alone in the house with some fellow whom you never heard of before in your life."
Her face paled, and her brown eyes had a glint of fire in them; but with a splendid effort, she managed again to frame words other than those eager to burst forth.
"You miss the real problem that calls for solution," she said tremulously. "The consequences of my actions, no matter how foolish they may have been, count for nothing in comparison with the tragedy with which my father's name is bound up. Oh, Percy, don't you see what people must think? A man committed suicide in this house, and every one believed it was my father. Yet you yourself, less than an hour ago, brought me a letter written by my father yesterday! Suppose I leave Elmdale this instant—suppose, which is impossible, that the present excitement dies down—how can I go through life with such a ghastly secret weighing me down? It would drive me crazy!"
Armathwaite's firm tread was audible as he crossed the hall.
"Anyhow, take my tip, and don't blurt out everything you know the minute you're asked," muttered her counselor, and the door opened.
Armathwaite drew a chair to the window and unfolded a frayed newspaper, laying another on his knees. To all appearance, he had noted neither the sullen discontent in one face nor the white anguish in the other.
"This is a copy of theNuttonby Gazette, dated June 22nd, two years ago," he said. "It contains what appears to be a verbatim report of the opening day's inquest, which seems to have created a rare stir, judging by the scare heads and space allotted to it. Will it distress you, Miss Ogilvey, if I go through it from beginning to end?"
"Yes, it will distress me very greatly, but I don't see how I can avoid hearing it. If one visits the dentist there is no use in pretending that having a tooth drawn doesn't hurt. Please read every word."
He obeyed without further preamble. It was a disagreeable task, but he did not flinch from it, though well aware that the gruesome details would shock one of his hearers inexpressibly. Divested of the loud-sounding phrases with which a country reporter loves to clothe any incident of a sensational character, the newspaper added nothing to the facts already related by Betty Jackson and Police-constable Leadbitter, except a letter written and signed by the deceased man, in which he declared he had taken his own life because he was suffering from an incurable disease. It was only when the succeeding issue of theNuttonby Gazettewas scanned, with its report of the adjourned inquest, that new light was vouchsafed.
The coroner was a Mr. Hill, a local solicitor; a Dr. Scaife, from Bellerby, who had conducted a post-mortem examination, had excited Mr. Hill's ire by his excessive caution in describing the cause of death.
"I found no symptoms of what is popularly known as 'incurable disease,'" said the doctor. "The brain, heart, liver, lungs, and internal organs generally were in a fairly healthy state except for ordinary post-mortem indications. Death by hanging is usually capable of clear diagnosis. There is excessive fluidity of the blood, with hyperæmia of the lungs. The right side of the heart is engorged, and the left nearly empty. The mucous membrane of the trachea is injected, and appears of a cinnabar-red color. The abdominal veins are congested, and apoplexy of the brain is present as a secondary symptom. Contrary to common belief, the eyes do not start from the head, and the tongue seldom protrudes beyond the teeth. Indeed, the expression of the face does not differ from that seen in other forms of death, and, in this connection, it must be remembered that death, the result of disease, may present all the signs of death by suffocation. The body showed few of these indices."
"Would you mind telling us what you are driving at, Dr. Scaife?" the coroner had asked. "Here is a man found hanging in his house, leaving a letter addressed to me in which he states his intention beyond a doubt. Do you wish the jury to believe that his death may nevertheless have been a natural one?"
"No," was the reply. "I do not say that. But the absence of certain symptoms, and the presence of others, make it essential that I should state that Mr. Garth might just as well have died from apoplexy as from strangulation."
"Are we to understand that Mr. Garth may have died from apoplexy and afterwards hanged himself?"
"That would be nonsense," said Dr. Scaife.
"I agree, most emphatically. Do you refuse to certify as to the cause of death?"
"No. I am merely fulfilling a duty by pointing out what I regard as discrepancies in the post-mortem conditions. I looked for signs of organic disease. There was none."
Evidently, coroner and doctor were inclined to be testy with each other, and the newspaper report left the impression that Dr. Scaife was a hair-splitter. In the result, a verdict of "Suicide, while in a state of unsound mind," was returned.
There followed a description of the interment in Bellerby churchyard of "the mortal remains of Stephen Garth," when the vicar read a "modified form of the burial service," while the "continued absence from Elmdale of the dead man's wife and daughter," was referred to without other comment.
When Armathwaite laid aside the second newspaper, no one spoke for a minute or more. Percy Whittaker was seemingly interested in the effort of a fly to extract nutriment from a lump of sugar; Marguérite Ogilvey was staring at vacancy with wide-open, terror-laden eyes; Armathwaite himself appeared to be turning over the baffling problem in his mind.
At last, Whittaker stirred uneasily.
"What time does the post leave here, Meg?" he inquired. "I want to send Edie a line. She'll have a bad fit of the jumps if she hears from neither of us to-morrow."
The rather bizarre question startled the girl out of her melancholy thoughts. She looked at Whittaker as though she had completely forgotten his presence.
"The post," she repeated. "There is no post out of Elmdale this evening. Miggles passed through the village hours ago."
"Miggles?"
"He's the postman. We either see him ourselves or leave letters at Thompson's, the grocer's, before four o'clock."
"Then neither letter nor telegram can be dispatched to-night?"
"Yes. If you care to pay mileage to Bellerby, and the message is handed in before eight, Thompson will send a boy with a telegram."
Whittaker glanced at his watch. The hour was half-past six.
"How far is Bellerby?" he said. "Tell me in terms of the clock, not in miles, which, as a method of reckoning in Yorkshire, conveys a sense of infinity."
"A boy can bicycle there in half an hour."
"Then, footsore as I am, I shall hie me to Thompson's."
"Why not write your telegram here, and Betty will take it."
"No, thanks. I'll see to it myself. Then, if it doesn't reach Edie to-night, I can place a hand on my heart and vow I did all man could do, and failed."
"You are not forgetting that I have written to her?"
"No. Don't you see? A letter from you complicates matters even more. If she hears from Meg, and not a word is said about Percy, she'll wonder what has become of little me. I suppose Thompson's shop is not 'a nice bit' removed from the village?"
"It is opposite the Fox and Hounds Inn. You can walk there in two minutes."
Armathwaite, who had risen, and was staring through the window during this brief colloquy, was struck by the quietly pertinacious note in Whittaker's voice. Moreover, he was listening carefully, since there was some faint trace of an accent which had a familiar sound in his ears. He waited, until the younger man had gone out and was walking gingerly down the garden path; progress downhill must have been a torture to sore toes, yet Whittaker was strangely determined to send that unnecessary telegram in person—unnecessary, that is, in view of the fact that a message dispatched next morning would have served the same purpose. Why? Armathwaite found that life bristled with interrogatives just then.
Turning to look at Marguérite, he said:
"Your friend doesn't like me."
She did not attempt to fence with him. Somehow, when her eyes met his, a new strength leaped in her heart.
"Percy flatters himself on the ease with which he follows the line of least resistance, but in reality he is a somewhat shallow and transparent person," she answered.
"There is a transparency of shallowness which occasionally hides a certain depth of mud."
"Oh, he means no harm! His widowed sister, Mrs. Suarez, is a great stickler for the conventions, and she has infected him with her notions. She is the 'Edie' he speaks of.Mychum is a younger sister, Christabel."
"Suarez? An unusual name in England."
"She married a Calcutta merchant. The Whittakers are Anglo-Indians."
Armathwaite smiled. He knew now whence came that slightly sibilant accent. Whittaker was a blonde Eurasian, a species so rare that it was not surprising that even a close observer should have failed to detect the "touch of the tar-brush" at first sight. From that instant Armathwaite regarded him from an entirely new view-point. The Briton who has lived many years in the East holds firmly to the dogmatic principle that in the blend of two races the Eurasian is dowered with the virtues of neither and the vices of both. More than ever did he regret the qualms of the conventional Mrs. Suarez which had brought Percy Whittaker to Elmdale that day.
"I'm sorry he deems it advisable to distrust me," he went on. "How long have you been acquainted with the family?"
"Ever since I went to school with Christabel at Brighton. She often came here during the summer holidays; and I used to visit her at Whitsuntide."
"They are aware of your change of name, of course?"
"Yes. How could it be otherwise?"
"A thoughtless question indeed. The notion was flitting through my mind that no one in Elmdale knew of it, or the fact was bound to have been made public at the inquest. The doctor who gave evidence—was he your regular medical attendant?"
"He was an intimate friend rather than a doctor. He knew dad so well that he would scout the idea of suicide. Perhaps that explains his hesitating statement to the coroner. Oh, Mr. Armathwaite, what does it all mean? Was ever girl plunged into such a sea of trouble? WhatamI to do?"
"Don't you think you ought to send for your mother?"
"If she were here now she could only say what I am saying—that my father is alive and in the best of health."
"Forgive me if I seem to be cross-examining you, but I am groping blindly towards some theory which shall satisfy two conditions wholly irreconcilable at present. Your mother and you went away from Elmdale, leaving your father here. Do you remember the exact reason given for your departure?"
"One day dad asked me to read some passages from a French treatise on Basque songs. It was rather technical stuff, and I stumbled over the translation, so he said I was losing my French, and that mother and I should go to Paris for a few weeks, and do a round of theaters. Of course, I was delighted—what girl wouldn't be? I couldn't pack quickly enough. When Paris emptied, towards the end of June, we went to Quimper, in Brittany. And there was another excuse, too. About that time we received news of the legacy, and dad thought we should get accustomed to the change of name more readily in a foreign country."
"How long did you remain abroad?"
"Nearly three months. But dad joined us within a fortnight of our departure from England. He only remained at home to finish a book and clear up the lawyer's business about the money."
"After your return, what happened?"
"We had a month in London. Then my people took a house in Cornwall, near the village of Warleggan, a place tucked in beneath the moors, just as Elmdale is. Dad explained that he wanted to study the miracle plays at first hand, because the remnants of the language possessed by the old inhabitants were more helpful than grammars and Oxford translations."
"Your mother raised no difficulties about the change of residence?"
"Not the least. In a way, it was rather agreeable, both to mother and me. Here we saw very few people. In Warleggan, where dad's pen-name, now his own legally, gave him some social standing, the county families called. We were richer, too, and could afford to entertain, which we never did while in Elmdale."
Armathwaite passed a hand over his mouth and chin in a gesture of sheer bewilderment.
"I still hold strongly to the opinion that you should send for Mrs. Ogilvey," he said, striving to cloak the motive underlying the suggestion, since he was assured now that the half-forgotten tragedy of the Grange would speedily burst into a new and sinister prominence in far-off Warleggan. "If she were here she could direct my efforts to choke off inquirers. We may be acting quite mistakenly. She knows everything—I am convinced of that—and her appearance would, in itself, serve to put matters on a more normal basis."
Marguérite sprang to her feet. Her fine eyes blazed with uncontrollable excitement, and her voice held a ring of defiance.
"If my mother ought to come, why not my father?" she cried vehemently. "I know what you are thinking, but dare not say. You believe my father is a murderer? Is that it? You imagine that a man who would not wilfully harm a fly is capable of committing a dreadful crime and shielding himself under the assumption that he took his own life?"
"Isn't that rather unjust of you?" said Armathwaite.
"I'm not considering the justice or injustice of my words now. I am defending one whom I love. I——"
She choked, and buried her face in her hands. Bitterly aware that he was only adding to her woes, he nerved himself for the ungracious task.
"You are trying, like myself, to explain a set of extraordinary circumstances," he said. "Woman-like, you do not scruple to place on my shoulders the burden of your own vague suspicions. I am not so greatly concerned as you seem to imagine because of the possibility that your father may have killed someone. Unhappily, I myself have killed several men, in fair fight, and in the service of my country, but there is no blood-guiltiness on my conscience. Before I venture to describe any man as a murderer, I want to know whom he killed, and why."
He made this amazing statement with the calm air of a sportsman contrasting the "bags" of rival grouse moors. Even in her bitter distress the girl was constrained to gaze at him in wonderment.
"You think that the taking of human life may be justifiable?" she gasped.
"Naturally. If not, why do we honor great soldiers with pensions and peerages?"
"But that is in warfare, when nations are struggling for what they conceive to be their rights."
"Sometimes. The hardest tussle I was ever engaged in dealt with no more sacred trust than the safe-guarding of half a dozen bullocks. Certain fierce-whiskered scoundrels swore by the Prophet that they would rieve those cattle, and perhaps a rifle or two, with a collection of women's ornaments as a side line, while I was equally resolved that the lawful possessors thereof should not be harried. Fifteen men died in five minutes before the matter was settled in accordance with my wishes, and I accounted for three of them. I am not boasting of the achievement. It was a disagreeable necessity. I tell you of it now merely to dissipate any notion you may have formed as to my squeamishness in looking unpleasant facts squarely in the face. A man died here two years ago, and it would be sheer folly to pretend that your father knew nothing about it. I believe you will find that the dead man not only wore Mr. Garth's clothes, but bore such a close facial and physical resemblance to him that people who had known him half a lifetime were deceived. Then, there is the letter read by the coroner. I take it for granted that it was in your father's handwriting. If these things are true, and common sense tells me that we ought to go on that assumption, and on no other, Mr. Garth will surely be called upon to explain why he endeavored to hoodwink the authorities. If he comes here within the next few days he will certainly be arrested. That is why I ask you to send for your mother. Everything points to the belief that she knows why you left Elmdale. I reject the legacy theoryin toto. By a strange coincidence, your parents may have had some money left to them by will about that time. If so, they merely took advantage of the fortunate chance which enabled them to explain the change of name without any violent wrenching of the probabilities. One word more to define my own position in this matter. I don't care tuppence whether or not your father killed anyone, or why. My sole concern is for you. I am responsible for the whole wretched muddle. Had I not gratified an impish taste for ferreting out mysteries, I would have allowed Betty Jackson to smuggle you out of the house yesterday. Had I obeyed the conventions—those shackles on the wayward-minded devised by generations of careful mammas—I would have bundled you off last night, or, if common charity forbade, sent you away at daybreak. Then, nothing would have happened, except that I should be burdened with a secret, no new thing inmylife. Now, will you send for Mrs. Ogilvey?"
"No," came the instant reply.
"Despite Mr. Percy Whittaker's warning, will you trust me so far as to explain your reason for refusing?"
"What do you mean by 'Percy Whittaker's warning'? I have told you nothing of what he said."
"I understand the type of man. He could no more refrain from suggesting that I was actuated by some underhanded motive than a flea-ridden dog from scratching."
"Please, don't pick a quarrel with Percy on my account," she pleaded tearfully.
"On your account I shall suffer Percy, even though he bray me in a mortar."
"Well, then, I'm—I'm sorry if I turned on you a little while ago. I apologize. You are really the only one I can appeal to for help at this moment. It was just because I felt the truth of all that you have said that I tried to force the same confession from you. Heaven help me, I am compelled to believe that my poor father got himself involved in some dreadful crime. It will all come out now. If the police get hold of him he will be put in prison. I must save him. Never did daughter love a father more than I love mine, and I'll sacrifice everything, reputation, happiness, even life itself, for his sake. And that is why my mother must not come here. I shall remain, and she will stay in Cornwall so as to safeguard him, if need be. You have no idea what an innocent he is in worldly affairs. If—if he had to escape—to get away from some foreign country—he could never manage it without her assistance. Don't you see, the decision must rest with me? I'll write to mother, and tell her what we know, and arrange some plan with her whereby dad will be able to avoid arrest. Oh, I can't make things clearer, but you are so kind and nice that you will understand—and help! Say you'll help, and I'll not cry any more—but be brave—and confident!"
While uttering that broken appeal she had come near, and a timid hand now rested on his shoulder. He looked down into her swimming eyes and saw there the perfect faith of a child. Never was man more tempted to take a woman in his arms and kiss away her fears than was Robert Armathwaite at that instant, but he recoiled from the notion as though a snake had reared its basilisk head from out of a bed of sweet-scented flowers. Nevertheless, he placed his hands on her shoulders, and now his left arm was entwined with her right arm, and they stood there in unconsciously lover-like pose.
"I'm glad you said that, little girl," he said quietly. "I shall not disappoint you, depend on that. If we have to break every statute therein made and provided, we'll save your father from the consequences of his own blundering or wrong-doing. Now, leave everything to me. If strangers, other than the police, ask you questions, refer them to your 'cousin.' Remember, you know nothing and can tell nothing as to bygone events, while you can say, if a demand is made for your father's present address, that I have advised you not to supply it. We must not appear to be actually defying the authorities. Our rôle is one of blank ignorance, combined with a pardonable curiosity to discover what all the fuss is about. I must not figure as a hindrance to inquiry, but merely as a distant relative who objects to your being bothered by a matter of which you, at least, have no knowledge. Now, one thing more—I want to see your father's handwriting. Will you give me the envelope which contained his letter?"
"Better still," said Marguérite, drying her eyes with a scrap of lace which was supposed to be a pocket-handkerchief, "I'll give you the letter itself. You'll find it a highly incriminating document."
To reach the letter, which she had tucked into a waistbelt, she had to withdraw the other hand from Armathwaite's shoulder. He had no excuse to hold her any longer in that protecting way, and his own hands fell. Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he became aware that Percy Whittaker was gazing at them through the window.
His first impulse was to tell his companion of this covert espionage, for it was nothing less. The two were talking in the drawing-room, so Whittaker had purposely walked past the porch in order to look in at them. Then he decided that the girl had worries in plenty without embroiling her with one who was admittedly an admirer, so he indulged in a little bit of acting on his own account.
When she produced the letter, he turned his back on the window, ostensibly to obtain a better light, and, at the same time, drew slightly to one side. The handwriting was scholarly but curiously legible, betraying the habit of a dabbler in strange words who printed rather than wrote, lest some playful compositor should invent a new and confounding philology.
The text certainly afforded a weird commentary on the circumstances which laid at the writer's door responsibility for an audacious crime. It ran:
"My Darling Meg,—Chester has been a bookish city since the days of Julius Cæsar. I have small doubt, if one dug deep in its foundations, one would come across an original manuscript in J. C.'s own fist. I would impose a lighter task, however. Rummage one or two old bookshops, and get me Wentworth Webster's 'Basque Legends,' published in London in 1877 and 1879. I am hungering for it. Find it quickly, and come home. I need your sharp eyes.—Yours ever,"Dad."
"My Darling Meg,—Chester has been a bookish city since the days of Julius Cæsar. I have small doubt, if one dug deep in its foundations, one would come across an original manuscript in J. C.'s own fist. I would impose a lighter task, however. Rummage one or two old bookshops, and get me Wentworth Webster's 'Basque Legends,' published in London in 1877 and 1879. I am hungering for it. Find it quickly, and come home. I need your sharp eyes.—Yours ever,
"Dad."
Marguérite watched Armathwaite's face while he read.
"Enough to hang anybody, isn't it?" she cried, with dolorous effort to speak in lighter vein.
"May I retain this? I shall take good care of it."
"Keep it as a souvenir. The identical book is lying on the library table."
Yet her mobile face clouded again, since it could not be denied that her father knew well that the book was in the Elmdale house, and was deliberately ignoring its existence there.
Armathwaite affected to look through the window.
"Hullo!" he said. "Whittaker has come back."
Whittaker, standing sideways, seemingly discovered them simultaneously. He came in.
"Thompson speaks a language of his own," he drawled; "but the dispatch of a boy on a bicycle, and the resultant charge of three shillings, gave color to my belief that he understood the meaning of 'telegram.' Otherwise, his remarks were gibberish."
"Percy," said Marguérite gravely, "Mr. Armathwaite and I have had a serious talk while you were out. He advised me to send for my mother, but, for various reasons, I have decided to fight this battle myself, with your aid, and Mr. Armathwaite's, of course."
Whittaker hesitated perceptibly before he spoke again. Like all neurotics, he had to flog himself into decision.
"I fully expected something of the sort, Meg," he said at last. "As I don't approve of the present state of affairs, I took it on myself to ask Edie to wire Mrs. Ogilvey, bidding her travel north by the next train."
"You didn't dare!" breathed the girl, whose very lips whitened with consternation.
"Oh, yes, I dared all right! A fellow must assert himself occasionally, you know. I can see plainly that you intend remaining in Elmdale till the mystery you have tumbled into is cleared up. In that case, your mother is the right person to take hold of the situation. You'll be vexed with me, no doubt, and tell me that I had no business to interfere, but I've thought this thing out, and I'm backing my judgment against yours. In a week, or less, you'll thank me. See if you don't."
"I shall never forgive you while I have breath in my body," she said, speaking with a slow laboriousness that revealed the tension of her feelings far more than the mere words.
"I was sure you'd say that, and must put up with it for the time being. Anyhow, the thing is beyond our control now, and you know Edie well enough to guess that she'll do as I tell her."
"What did you tell her? I have a right to ask."
"I kept a copy of the message," he said with seeming nonchalance. "I'll read it: 'Meg greatly disturbed by rumors concerning death which occurred in Grange two years ago. Telegraph her mother at once, and recommend immediate journey to Elmdale.' Unless I'm greatly mistaken, that will bring Mrs. Ogilvey here without delay, especially when Edie adds her own comments."
Marguérite sank into a chair. Her sky had fallen. She was too unnerved now to find relief even in tears. She continued to glower at Whittaker as though he had become some fearsome and abhorrent object. Evidently, however, he had steeled himself against some such attitude on her part.
"Don't forget there's two to one in this argument, Meg," he said, sitting down and producing a cigarette. "Since Mr. Armathwaite has elected to be your champion after a very brief acquaintance, I must point out that, by your own admission, he recommended the same thing. The only difference is that while he talked I acted."
For a little time there was silence. Whittaker, brazening the thing out, lighted the cigarette. Armathwaite, unable to indulge the impulse which suggested the one effective way in which this decadent half-breed could be restrained from future interference, could not trust himself to speak. As for the girl, she seemed to be tongue-tied, but her laboring breath gave eloquent testimony of surcharged emotions.
Finally, wishing to ease the strain, Armathwaite glanced at his watch. The time was a few minutes after seven.